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I agree with her message in thought, but certainly not with her delivery. If you've ever watched a person, especially a child died (Yes, I have many times), you understand her perspective. Many people experience great discomfort and suffering in the days and hours before they pass. I would willingly allow my child, spouse or parent to be heavily medicated in an effort to cease that pain and suffering, even if the side effect was death. Why should anyone suffer needlessly, if there is zero hope for full recovery? What purpose does allowing a child or an aged person to suffer?

My husband and I were at the bedside during my FILs recent passing. He had been incapacitated from a stroke for 9 years, had been aphasic for 5 years and bedridden (would get hypotensive and pass out when raised OOB) for over a year.

He was sick and hospitalizedabout 1 week prior to his death but was d/c'd back to his caregivers under Hospice Care (he was septic and had a DNR in place). I can not express the level of discomfort this gentlemen suffered, even with medication and support- I will not describe the physical changes...... My husband, the most gentle man that I know, told me afterwards that he wished that he could have put a pillow over his father's face..his exact words-that's how horrible this situation was at the end. No one should die like this- Had it been my dad, I would have asked for the narcs and given him a great deal more, myself- my dad agrees-

I agree with Anouck. We give our pets more kindness and compassion when they are suffering than we do our beloved family members. I saw nothing wrong with what Virginia Ironside was saying--she was expressing compassion and a wish to end severe and terminal suffering in an innocent child. I did see a lot wrong with the other two women who were presumptuous enough to judge her for her compassionate point of view. I guess to some, it is better to let humans, including children, suffer deep agony than to offer a peaceful end to it. It would not be joyful--when I've had to euthanize pets, it was horribly painful for me--but, in the name of human kindness, what's wrong with it?

I don't think that the speaker was saying that she'd want to suffocate her child, she was simply using that to illustrate how strongly she feels about helplessly watching a child suffer, and was saying that she'd rather suffocate the child than to let him or her suffer needlessly. I seriously doubt that she was proposing that parents go and suffocate their terminally ill children. She was simply and dramatically expressing how she'd rather let the child die than to suffer needlessly. If we are in agreement that we'd rather not prolong an agonizing death, then there's no argument, right? If that's the case, then your real issue is how Ms. Ironside expressed herself, rather than the message she was imparting.

Again, agentwanda, I think that she was simply using the pillow analogy to illustrate how she feels about euthanasia, and I agree with her. I wouldn't want to suffer like that, and I wouldn't want my children to, either. How you choose to manage your end-of-life decisions may be different, but I don't think it makes either of us monsters. The fact that Ms. Ironside was able to maintain composure is to me proof that she's taken time to think this through and is making a logical choice, rather than proof of her insanity. She seems like a compassionate person who isn't prone to hysterical knee-jerk inflexible ideas about matters as important as life, death, and quality of life. She's not saying that everyone with a terminally ill child should grab the nearest pillow. She's just defending euthanasia as a compassionate option.

Hmm, I don't know... Granted, she put it rather harshly, but I think she does have a point. Personally, if I had a child who was terminally ill, and who was suffering 24/7, I could see wanting to stop that suffering... The same way I don't see anything wrong with euthanasia. Which actually has been legal for quite some years where I'm from.

Honestly, who wants to see their child suffer with no prospect of ever getting better?